


confession's always on my mind

by el7777



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Canon, Cuddling, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Ignoring Feelings, Random scenes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-12
Updated: 2016-04-12
Packaged: 2018-06-01 21:25:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6536860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/el7777/pseuds/el7777
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Charlie kisses Dee for the first time, they are twenty years old. (Or: Charlie and Dee don't hate each other. They show it sometimes.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	confession's always on my mind

**Author's Note:**

> haven't written any fic in probably three+ years, but I ran out of CharDee fic to read so why not write it. short N sweet, and written in scenes. I tried to be as in character as I could, but writing a IASIP and fluff don't really go hand in hand. also the rest of the gang isn't really in this much. I hope you like this regardless.
> 
> title from coma cinema's "satan made a mansion"

When Charlie kisses Dee for the first time, they are twenty years old. Dee’s sitting on her front porch back home, everyone visiting for summer break. There is hard liquor, dancing, shenanigans -- nothing out of the ordinary. She digs the toe of her converse into a patch of loose dirt in the earth, then takes a swig of her whiskey, doesn’t flinch as it slides down her throat. She had just gotten her back brace removed, so there was always a constant dull ache between her shoulderblades. She thought her life would significantly improve the moment it was removed, like peeling off a layer of dead skin, but it didn’t. She takes another sip.

Charlie is next to her, silent, watching the sun set lazily between the trees, bathing the world in an intoxicating orange glow. Dee looks at him after a moment, an incredulous look on her face as if she hadn’t noticed him sitting there the entire time. “What.” she states. It’s not a question.

Charlie, drunkenly, kisses her then. He stops thinking, and puts his hands, greyed with dirt, on her cheeks. She lets him kiss her for a second, before standing up and walking back inside without a word. Charlie hears music when she opens the door, but it fades when she shuts it behind her. The sun is fully set now, so they don’t talk about it again. It’s okay.

\- -

So they all own a bar together: Paddy’s Pub. Charlie, Dee, her brother Dennis, and their friend Mac. Things are beginning to fall apart, but they’re hardly thirty. How can you fall apart at thirty? Dee watches her hopes and dreams of becoming a Hollywood actress slip through her fingers. Her mouth always tastes like booze. It’s okay. This is life sometimes.

\- -

Charlie kisses Dee for the second time when they’re being held hostage in Paddy’s, and it’s not the first time they’ve teetered on the edge of life and death. Everything is white-hot in Charlie’s mind, so fast and intense. They need to live, they will, but. Dee needs to live. “I’m going to save you,” he says. He means it.

“Time’s up, start smashing.”

He kisses her hard, and again, she stays still. Maybe Dee hallucinated the _I love you_ he blurted afterwards in her fear-induced delirium. And maybe she hallucinated the slap to the face too. Things were pretty hazy that day. They survive, like they always do, and the sun rises again the next morning.

\- -

They don’t do crazy shit all the time. They do normal things too. Sometimes Charlie comes over to get tipsy and watch a movie. Sometimes Dee thinks it feels like surviving still, but Charlie is somehow so calm when they’re alone, very much different from how he is at the bar, where he’s always yelling and laughing and wreaking havoc. Both Charlie’s irritate her, but maybe this Charlie irritates her a little less.

One night, they fall asleep together on Dee’s little sofa. Charlie wakes up to Dee snoring on top of him. His body is crammed into an awkward position, but she is warm, draped over him, so he doesn’t really hate it. He stays still until she wakes up and walks into her bathroom, shutting the door behind her. He gets up, puts on his shoes, and leaves before she comes back out. On the way home, he mentally (and maybe physically) slaps himself for not staying. It feels a little like the walk of shame. Things are kind of awkward later, but they’re teasing each other like usual by the end of the day.

\- -

They’re all at another bar for once. Dennis heard from Mac who heard from Frank that there was a new up and coming bar in the neighborhood, stealing any customers they might’ve had before. It was dimly lit, charming, seductive -- and it didn’t have five bickering kind-of adults yelling over each other for hours. So obviously they had to check it out.

And it was beautiful. Everything Paddy’s could have been.

They’re sitting at the bar, Dee next to Charlie. They all have beers besides Charlie, who dug around in his pockets for change but only managed to find a dirt-covered nickel and two green pebbles. So Dee says to him, “Hey, do you want me to buy you a drink?”

“Why?”

“Just because.” She says. Charlie smiles, nodding his head enthusiastically.

\- -

Charlie’s phone vibrates on the counter. Dennis is closest to it, pouring himself a tall glass of beer. His eyes graze over it, and it’s a text from Dee, reading: come over?

 _Huh, that’s weird,_ Dennis thinks, because this is definitely Charlie’s phone. And that is definitely Dee’s name at the top. When did _they_ start talking, and why, _why,_ hasn’t he heard about it? He’s Dennis. He’s the leader. He needs to know these things, for the sake of the gang’s dynamic.

Charlie walks by, seeing the object in Dennis’ hand, “Oh. You found my phone.” He takes it and begins to walk away.

“Wait,” Dennis says. Charlie waits, because Dennis told him to. “Why the hell is Dee telling you to come over?”

“I don’t know, because we’re friends?” Charlie says. Of course they’re friends, they’ve known each other for 15 years.

\- -

“You want to get lunch?”

“Sure.”

\- -

The third time Charlie kisses Dee, they’re in her apartment. They had hung out all day, just the two of them, and it felt like magic. They had just been so in sync, something Dee certainly hadn’t expected. It was almost indescribable.

So. The third time Charlie kisses Dee, they’re in her apartment. 

They’re tipsy, mouths full of poetry, the room bathed in incandescent light. Charlie can’t stop playing with his hands. “I just feel like I’m feeling something,” He breathes, “Something crazy.”

(because mac and dennis are always fucking berating them. Dee doesn’t know who she is anymore, and Charlie is purely what they made him, too. He’s so smart, Dee thinks, he’s the smartest guy I know, how can they be so horrible to him? oh, Charlie. Oh.)

Then there is a beer-soaked mouth on hers and, okay, that’s nice. She relaxes this time, and lets herself put her hands on his face, his stubble almost sharp beneath her fingertips. And it’s … intimate, somehow.

(Dee thinks: _charliecharliecharlie_ )

“Oh, shit.” Then the moment is over.

 “Whoops.”

Charlie starts pulling at his fingers again, and he just really fucking wants to know what Dee is thinking. He avoids her eyes, but they’re right there. And, and she kissed back!

(Oh, fuck it.) 

He kisses her again. Harder this time, desperate. He can’t think about anything else, grinning against her mouth, pulling her onto the couch with him. He wants to know everything about her. He wants her to want to know everything about him too, and he’d tell her. They kiss recklessly, as they would do anything else, like it’s their last chance, like the Earth is about to explode. Charlie can’t believe the world is real and this is real and that’s Dee, here, now.

She’s slowing down now, cradling his face. Charlie’s half hard until he realizes her cheeks are wet. He holds her tighter.

"You okay?”

“I’m fine, don’t stop.”

They kiss again, Dee’s cheeks still wet.

“Wait, stop,” She says. Charlie stops. She pulls away from him, looking him straight in the eyes, though her gaze fuzzy and unfocused. “Can we just lay down for a minute?”

He nods, and pulls her into his chest. The world is still for a moment, but full of white noise. Charlie considers the cars on the street below, Dee’s heater buzzing, the sound of her breathing, then the sound of her crying again. Unsure of what to do, he kisses the top of her head. Dee looks up at him, mascara smudged black underneath her eyes, eyes glossy and red, so small and fragile in his arms. This is entirely new.

“You’re beautiful,” Charlie says, because he is drunk and can’t think straight. Because he means it.

Dee rolls her eyes and turns over, an awkward-limbed little spoon squeezed tight against Charlie’s steady body. Then she says, “Thanks.”

“Are you okay?” Charlie whispers behind a mouthful of her hair.

“I guess. Is this weird?” She wishes she didn’t say it immediately after she does.

“Kind of.” There is a moment of silence, letting everything settle in. “Do you want to pretend this never happened?”

“Not really.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Not really.” Another pause, then: “Did you mean it, when you called me beautiful?”

Charlie inhales deep, breathing her in. If he was sober, it would be so awkward, spine pushed against the back of this tiny couch, and chest pushed against Dee. But _Dee Reynolds!_ Fuckin A.

“Yeah, I did.”

She closes her eyes, feeling Charlie’s chest rise and collapse on her back.

The next morning, Dee wakes up and Charlie is gone. She sighs in relief, but can’t ignore the pang of disappointment in her chest. When they see each other later at Paddy’s, they don’t talk about it. It’s okay.

\- - 

They’re fine. It’s all _normal,_ at a distance. They try not to have the gang look into it too much, but they’d acted incredibly off the morning after, though the suspicious gang became quickly distracted by Frank entering, bearing rum ham. Dennis promised things would get back to the way they were before, and Charlie and Dee were eager to agree.

But when was _before?_ Charlie wondered. Before they missed the boat? Well, Charlie had liked Dee long before they’d missed the boat. He’d always wanted to help her, keep her safe and be her friend, even back in high school when all that concerned him was impressing Dennis and getting high. And he’d always thought she was pretty, despite maybe, _kind of_ looking like a bird. And he’s always thought she was soft, despite the hard edges around her eyes and cheeks and chin. He knew she could relax those tense muscle, wound together in a perma-scowl to scare off anyone thinking she can be fucked with. She was mean, tightly wound, boozy, with a thick wall built strategically around her. But god, why hasn’t Charlie been able to stop thinking about her since they kissed last?

He thinks about the way her hands found his face when they kissed, and the way she looked up at him with teary mascara eyes after. Why was she so sad, why was she crying, was it me?, he wondered. Will things ever go back to normal?, he wondered. _Why did I have to fuck it up so bad?_ He just wanted to feel her, be able to breathe her in, forget about the bullshit that was going on relentlessly around them, because she, somehow, found a way to relax him.

God. He hasn’t thought about the Waitress in days. What the fuck.

\- -

Time goes by, slower than ever, and things begin to go back to normal. Dee no longer avoids Charlie’s eyes when they speak, doesn’t hold back in calling him names. He hasn’t gone to her apartment alone since that night. But even with the gang there, every time he does, he looks at her sofa and wonders exactly how tightly were they wrapped together to be able to fit on that little thing? Dee pretends not to notice him disassociating staring at her couch and just keeps talking, every time.

One day, Mac and Dennis leave them alone together, telling them to watch the bar while they go plan an elaborate scheme to fuck Frank over for god knows what. They leave, toolbox in hand.

The weight of the room suddenly feels very heavy around them, and Dee wishes there was a way to dial down on the awkwardness. She thinks of maybe saying something about it, but doesn’t want Charlie to be mean. She thinks she just wants him to put his arms around her, but pushes the thought as far back into her brain as it’ll go.

They don’t speak, Charlie quietly wiping down the bar.

Minutes go by.

“Okay, what’s up. Why aren’t things okay yet.” Dee says, but it’s not really a question.

“I don’t know, you keep looking at me funny.” Charlie puts both hands down on the bar, “You keep looking at me all soft.” 

Fuck, _do I?_ Dee thinks. “No way, what?” She scoffs, “ _Soft?_ You’re the one who won’t stop looking at my couch when you come over, like you’re thinking about it.”

“I’m just thinking about how ugly it is.”

“Yeah?” They’re a foot away from each other now, Charlie’s ears red. Dee’s ears are probably red too, but hidden underneath her hair, which looks incredibly fucking golden underneath the dim yellow bar lights. Charlie needs to stop thinking like this.

They both try to look royally pissed, but Charlie’s face softens. Then he smiles, just a little bit, and watches as Dee does the same.

She’s thinking, _now tell me the truth,_ so she says it.

“I think about that night all the time.”

Dee exhales a breath she didn’t know she was holding in.

Charlie continues, “Like, all the time. All of it. I wish I didn’t leave before you woke up. And I don’t think your couch is ugly. It really matches the color scheme in your living room. I like it. That’s the truth.”

Dee doesn’t know what to say, so she just grins, and closes the space inbetween them.

\- -

“You know, you didn’t really say much when we were talking earlier. You didn’t tell me your truth.”

They’re laying side by side on Dee’s bed now, Dee wearing Charlie’s oversized t-shirt and Charlie in his boxers. They didn’t bang, really, it’s just ridiculously sunny in Philly right now and Dee hasn’t gotten her A/C fixed yet. Charlie said he could probably figure it out, but not right now. The world was too hazy and bright.

“Eh,” Dee shrugged. “You basically said it already.”

“That’s not fair,” Charlie pouted, “making me say the hard stuff. That’s like, emotional.”

Dee only hums in response, turning to scooch closer to him. He puts his arm around her, pulling her nearer, breathing her in even though she’s sticky with sweat. It was just so comfortable, and _correct,_ like their bodies were, as horribly cliché as it sounds, crafted like puzzle pieces.

Then there is a Mac and a Dennis bursting through the door. Dennis is saying, “You idiots forget to lock the bar when you leave _and_ Dee’s front door, you fucking imbe-” He stops, noticing Charlie and Dee’s… compromising situation. “Whaaaaat the fuck.”

“We didn’t bang!” Dee says, defending herself. She hoped that it didn’t come off as embarrassment to be here with Charlie. “My A/C is broken.”

“Yeah, okay, sure.” Dennis says, sarcastically. “What the fuck.” He mutters to himself again, because _how could he not know?_ He’s the leader, dammit. He knows everything.

“Did anyone steal anything from the bar?” Charlie says now.

“Well, no, but they could have! Dammit, you guys.”

Then laughter starts bubbling up from Charlie’s throat and coming out his mouth. He’s laughing, because this is so funny, and Dee’s sitting next to him in his t-shirt, and Mac and Dennis are here, and the world is so goddamn ridiculously funny. Mac begins to laugh too.

Then everyone is giggling, because what the fuck, Charlie and Sweet Dee.

\- -

“It was just intense. I just needed to know that you actually thought I was worth something, and like, you weren’t just trying to get in my pants.” Dee says, sitting on the couch alone with Charlie. Mac and Dennis had left about an hour ago to go home. After laughing and talking about it and getting tipsy, they realized that Charlie and Dee can fuck each other up if they wanted to. They all sort of fucked each other up anyway.

"I wasn’t, really, I felt something all day that day. And, like all the time after.”

Dee again can’t find words to say, just smiles big, happiness bubbling inside of her, completely unfamiliar but still very welcome. Charlie kisses the top of her head and pulls her into his lap.

“You smell like sweat.” Dee says, sticking her tongue out. But it’s affectionate, and new.

“Whatever. Bird.”

So this is their life sometimes, poking fun at each other regardless of romantic attraction. The room feels light, and even with the weight of Dee’s body on his, Charlie can breathe easier than he has in months. They kiss while the TV runs in the background, and the sound of the city pours in from the window. There’s a gunshot heard in the distance that makes Charlie jump a little, but then she laughs at him, making him smile. It’s okay, it’s okay.


End file.
